


But Now the Sun is Streaming

by bravelikealady



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, ask meme, going for a swim or sharing a bath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6984022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelikealady/pseuds/bravelikealady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He finds her at Maidenpool and this time she goes with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Now the Sun is Streaming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplyprologue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/gifts).



The boat creaks beneath them and she hears the water lap against the bottom. Accidentally or otherwise he has placed his arm around her during the night and it is heavy on her waist. His breaths rise and fall, raising and dropping her chest with them. She wishes she could see the sky but she dare not raise what drapes over them now. He told her to be quiet, to be invisible, just until they make it to Shipbreaker’s Bay: _If any jump to take an empty boat, I can kill them. If they spot you outright, they’ll be more prepared, might be a different story._ **  
**

The air is warmer here, and she supposes the cover can’t help much. She wishes she could take it all in, see blue skies, breathe sea air. But there was no view in the world worth exposing herself as they pass King’s Landing.

_Soon enough. Soon enough. You’ve waited so long, only a little longer._

“You stirring, Little Bird?”

“Yes. I did not mean to wake you.”

He snorts, “Wasn’t asleep.”

He peels back the cover and rises to his knees. Sansa, mostly out of habit but partly out of trust, is obedient. The last few days still swirl in her stomach. Littlefinger’s death, running with Harry, and the Hound, there, at Maidenpool… She cannot bring herself to wonder of the chaos she left behind. A second chance for him to save her, to leave with more than a bloody cloak. She took it, she took it, and she’ll see where it goes.

“Nothing in sight, Little bird,” he says, tossing the sheet away and offering her his hand. She takes it and it is warm and soft under callouses and rough edges, and lets him guide her to a seat.

“Salt.”

“Aye.”

She begins to laugh and he laughs with her. “What is it, girl?”

“You’re laughing, too.”

Soon she is out of breath and Sandor Clegane stares out into the water like he sees a ghost. She gasps, closes her eyes, makes herself breath in the salt, feel it on her skin, “Where exactly will we go?”

“Myr, my best guess. The Free Cities. We’ll land amongst them somehow. They won’t care if you’re a Stark, Lannister, or a bloody Child of the Forest there.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, girl.”

Her eyes catch his and she sees something like… _shame_ , she thinks. She stands and walks to the edge of the boat he occupies. 

“Careful,” he gives out a warning, reaching out to steady her.

“I _want_ to thank you,” she says, accepting water that he offers from a pouch. “I… is it safe to swim here?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Sansa, smiling, tears the sleeves from her dress, and as she pulls her hair from its braid turns her back toward him, “my laces, help me, unlace me.”

“Can you even swim?”

“Yes, yes… Theon taught us in the springs and we visited Riverrun twice, just help me… You won’t let me drown, so help me in.”

One moment she stands in front of him in nothing but her smallclothes and the next she is diving in head first. It stings her skin, her face chapped from so long in higher elevations with winter’s approach, from the dehydration of sweating and shivering while hiding along Westeros’ coast. The mouth of the ocean is swallowing her and plants, animals, she does not know tickle her skin, and she is so taken by her weightlessness that she almost forgets to _kick kick kick_ back to the surface.

She gasps and her eyes burn from salt and sun. She wipes hair from her face and kicks to keep afloat. Sandor’s face is unreadable, but he stands, stripped down to his pants, and she thinks he must’ve meant to come in after her.

He could’ve stopped me, why let me go at all? Why listen to me?

“Come in,” she yells, laughing.

“Seven hells!”

“Get in the water!”

“Little bird-”

“It’s Sansa. Sansa. Sansa Stark. I’m… I’m Sansa, I’m Sansa, I’m Sansa,” she realizes she is crying.

She begins to swim away from the boat and seconds later a great crash comes behind her and douses her head.

“Sansa,” comes the sound of falling rock, the echo of King’s Landing. “Girl.”

He is in front of her, perhaps a better swimmer, perhaps just by grace of longer limb. His arm grips hers tight, but delicate as he asks, “Where are you going?”

“Wherever… wherever we’ll go.”

“Wherever we’ll go.”

She rests a hand on his shoulder, then another traces the scars of his chest. His whole body stiffens at first but soon he is as weightless as the water will allow him to be. His hand brushes hair from her eyes, then traces down her face. Sansa can feel him shaking. His hand is on her throat, no threat, just… holding her.

 

Sansa thinks he leans in, as he did once before, but the sky here is not sickly green, it is bright and blue.


End file.
